By Zack Craft, ATP, VP of Rehab Solutions and Complex Care Education, One Call Care Management
This post-holiday season, millions of Americans are sporting new health-tracking wearable technology devices referred to as “wearables.”
One of tech’s fastest growing sectors, smart wearable devices are widely embraced by the health and fitness world. Today’s consumers can use wrist-worn fitness trackers, smart glasses, smart watches, hearables that merge health tracking with audio, even shoes or headgear to track health information and sync with their mobile devices.
Creating a reciprocal relationship between man and machine, wearable technology is here to stay. The overall wearables market is expected to grow from $20 billion in 2015 to almost $70 billion in 2025, according to market analyst IDTechEx.
But wearable health technology is much more than a popular gift idea. In 2016, it will begin to play a huge role in workers’ compensation – helping to prevent workplace injuries, improving compliance so that routine injuries do not develop into long-term claims, and enabling better care and independence for workers with catastrophic injuries. Indeed, wearables are poised to create a revolution in how we treat injured workers. They will make life easier for the seriously injured, create better outcomes for routine and complex injuries, monitor conditions and help workers to comply with their treatment plans, accelerate return to work, and prevent claims from speeding down the track toward long-term disability and/or costs.
This article examines the application of wearable technology in workers’ compensation in four claim categories: complex or catastrophic claims, bariatric claims, geriatric claims and short-term claims.
Wearables for Complex or Catastrophic Claims
For workers with catastrophic injuries – including paraplegic, quadriplegic brain injuries, and loss of limbs, sight or hearing – there is a wide range of wearable and smart technologies that will transform the ability of these individuals to live more independently and maintain their health.
Examples include:
- Intelligent prosthetics like robotic hands with instant access to dozens of options and gestures
- Power wheelchairs with smart driving control, drive options and power assistance
- Wearable health monitors of all kinds that measure and report status to prevent risk and injury
- Robotic exoskeletons that enable individuals to walk again (FDA approval pending)
Seriously injured workers now have more confidence and environmental control with breakthrough, wearable gadgets to turn on/off the lights, adjust the thermostat, and open/close doors. Wearable devices give them more security, home accessibility, and mobility. The seriously injured individual can better communicate with wearables, using speaking and voice-controlled devices, smartphones, tablets, hands-free optical head-mounted displays, augmentative apps, with wireless Wi-Fi, infrared and Bluetooth connectivity.
These wearable innovations are often less expensive than other systems and reduce the need for assistive home care, while giving the injured workers vastly more control over their lives. Designed with simple interfaces and touch screens, the wearables add tremendously to the quality of life, increasing cognitive skills and levels of independence.
Short-term, Bariatric and Geriatric Claims
Wearable smart devices have great potential for bariatric, geriatric and short-term claims to improve outcomes, monitor progress, and reduce injuries and re-injuries.
Health tracker wristbands can sound an alert, announcing the right time to wake up, take medication, get up and stretch the legs, stand on the scale to monitor weight, adjust posture, or check the heart rate. To monitor health, there are also smartphones, pressure-sensing shoe inserts, special vests, headbands, and other fitness gadgets to monitor posture, and the monitoring of vital signs, amount and type of exercise, and how equipment is actually used to ensure compliance. With their automated monitoring functions, wearables can open a window into recovering workers’ ergonomics and work habits that will reveal problems with compliance such as the incorrect use of equipment or assistive devices or poor posture that aggravates injuries and slows recovery, turning routine short-term claims into long-term problems.
For workers in which weight management is part of their treatment program or contributes to risk factors, wearables can monitor diet and exercise, as well as report on health status of factors related to weight, such as blood sugar and heart activity, and excessive strain on joints.
Aging injured workers who require more consideration, additional treatment or assistance with memory and cognitive issues also find wearables a good way to monitor their recovery, improve health and stay compliant by keeping on time and on point with their treatment plans.
Wearables aren’t only useful for managing employees with health issues. For safety enhancement, there are inflatable helmets, sun-monitor wristbands, and other sensor devices that can identify unsafe conditions and halt injuries in advance.
Learning Curve
Wearables have come a long way since their predecessors such as calculator watches and portable audio cassette players. The affordability of wearables and their ease of use are creating new opportunities. In healthcare, wearables will replace many more complex and expensive technologies that are often difficult for patients to manage.
Wearables are stepping beyond their status as novelty technologies, along with other DIY healthcare innovations including mobile apps. Although according to PwC, 20 percent of American adults already own a wearable device, so they are becoming more and more familiar to consumers.
The workers’ compensation industry can expect a learning curve as these devices and systems begin their adoption for use with injured workers. It will take an adjustment period as insurers learn when, if, and which wearable technology is appropriate for an injured worker. It pays for payers and claims managers to educate themselves now about the many available options in wearable products and to understand their useful applications in injury prevention, compliance and rehabilitation. Certified rehabilitation specialists are an excellent resource for advice and education in this new world.
The PwC report says that early adopters are excited about the future of wearable tech with its top benefits of improved safety, healthier living, simplicity, and ease of use. Now is the time for this useful technology to truly transform how we manage health and medical care for injured workers.
For a faster return to work and better care for long-term injuries, the workers’ compensation industry should consider looking into these body-worn computational and sensory devices. They not only offer solutions for managing medical and indemnity costs, they represent a breakthrough in the search for better medical management for the injured workers in our care.
About Zack Craft
Zack Craft is VP of Rehab Solutions and Complex Care Education at One Call Care Management. Zack directs the rehabilitation technology and complex care services for One Call, specializing in assistive technology for severely injured employees. Zack and his cross-functional team of rehabilitation specialists, technicians serve patients who have suffered complex and/or catastrophic injuries, such as brain injuries, severe wounds, amputations and other similar life-altering conditions. He and his team travel the country, evaluating patients in rehabilitation centers and visiting their homes to determine the best home-based treatment approach. For more information about how wearable technology can lower claims costs while improving the quality of life for injured workers, contact Zack Craft at: 800-848-1989.
About One Call Care Management
One Call is the nation’s leading provider of specialized solutions to the workers’ compensation industry. One Call’s solutions enable faster, more efficient and more cost-effective claims resolution with a focus on injured workers’ needs across the continuum of care. One Call provides reliable, consistent connections to care with expertise in high end diagnostics, physical therapy and transportation services, post-discharge home care and durable medical equipment, dental and doctor specialty services, complex care management, and the language services required for today’s multicultural workforce. For more information, visit www.onecallcm.com.